With international competitions, sometimes a young person is not experienced enough to know to travel to the venue soon enough to avoid jet lag problems in performance. Sometimes, they just pick up a foreign germ to which their body has no immunity yet, and while coming down with the illness, their coordination goes kerflooey. Sometimes, they even get food poisoning. I remember how Alexei Yagudin had to compete while very ill, sometimes. After a beautiful sp to Ziganochka, he became ill and his free skate was technically correct, but somewhat wooden. He got it done, though, like a hero, and won overall. His lips were so pale during that FS; I'll never forget that. He got so sick at his first Olympics, that he was actually falling during his performance, which was so abnormal for him, that the audience gasped. It turned out that he had quite a fever. Apparently, he had washed his hair and come down to the rink to watch other skaters with his hair still wet, and thus gotten *very* sick; he came in fifth overall that time. When one is young, these things happen. They learn from experience.

Wow, Denis Ten completely bombed. A meltdown of Kostner proportions.. only 42 points in TES. Still the 4th highest PCS though. I guess the kid is just exhausted, it was a big gamble to come here but the chance of becoming world junior champion was too big. I really hope he recovers for Torino, but is gonna be even more exhausting for him.